The legal complications of a bizarre death by DR. Don Harper Mills

["Shavian Gibril Shaw" <gb_shaw@hotmail.com>]

On March 23, 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and 
concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The decedent had 
jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide. He 
left a note to that effect indicating his despondency. As he fell past the 
ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a 
window, which killed him instantly.

Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been 
installed just below at the eighth floor level to protect some building 
workers, proving that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his 
suicide the way he had planned. Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, "a person 
who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the 
mechanism might not be what he intended" is still defined as committing 
suicide. That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories 
below at street level, but that his suicide attempt probably would not have 
been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to 
feel that he had a homicide on his hands.

An elderly man and his wife occupied the room on the ninth floor from whence 
the shotgun blast emanated. They were arguing vigorously, and he was 
threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the 
trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the 
window striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills 
subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When 
confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both 
adamant. They both said they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man 
said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded 
shotgun. He had no intention of murdering her, Therefore the killing of Mr. 
Opus appeared to be an accident, that is the gun had been accidentally 
loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's 
son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It 
transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the 
son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, 
loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of 
Ronald Opus.

Now comes the bizarre twist. Future investigation revealed that the Son was 
in fact Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure 
of his attempt to engineer his mothers murder. This led him to jump off the 
ten-story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast 
passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered 
himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide. Very tidy of 
him.
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